


everglow

by nevergreen



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Best Friends, First Kiss, Insecurity, M/M, Mutual Pining, Self-Esteem Issues, a little bit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-24 21:54:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30078882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nevergreen/pseuds/nevergreen
Summary: For everyone else, Eddy is: a good student, an avid young musician, a quiet boy from the math prep, a lanky nerd with a weird face.For Brett, he’s just Eddy.
Relationships: Eddy Chen/Brett Yang
Comments: 13
Kudos: 68





	everglow

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文-普通话 國語 available: [everglow](https://archiveofourown.org/works/30153105) by [liseyalice](https://archiveofourown.org/users/liseyalice/pseuds/liseyalice)



> thank you so much friend! ♥
> 
> me, a known abuser of kisses as a narrative tool, seeing the first kiss prompt: it's Free Real Estate
> 
> [my twitter](https://twitter.com/twosetforti), come for all kinds of weird nsfw heart wrenching stuff and Extremely bad jokes

Eddy is: fifteen, smart, quiet, overshadowed, and anxious. His shirt is wrinkled and a bit short on sleeves, keeps getting shorter every month or so. His hair is weird and wild, nothing like the smooth, inky black locks of his sister. When he smiles, everyone can see his crooked teeth, so he doesn’t really do that - not in public, at least. The girl from the orchestra says he smells like a stray cat, and he still remembers it, half a year later. When he writes, all letters come out tilted to the left because Eddy holds a pen like the violin bow; he gets reprimanded for it, once, twice - but his grades are so good that he’s eventually left alone; it’s not like he was going to do anything with it in the first place. 

In general, the school for him on the scale of life experiences is somewhere between distant hostility and in-your-face unfriendliness; he doesn’t have friends here or even people with whom he could chat over a home-made lunch. Maybe that’s because he's the only one in the class who brings home-made lunches; when it’s break time, others go outside to buy some Cheezels and chat about remaining classes, and crushes and dates and kisses. Kisses are the new way of communication, a currency, and a hot topic. 

Eddy is an outcast, he’s excluded from this system; but he wishes he knew what it’s like. When he kisses someone in his mind, pressing his lips to his wrist in reality, there’s no face. It’s just - someone, accepting, understanding; Eddy doesn’t know who it is, and, frankly speaking, this person isn’t even real. Maybe, there will never be a face. 

Brett is sixteen; he’s Eddy’s best and closest friend - and, to be frank, the one and only. Eddy’s mom is concerned with him calling Brett his best friend, asking if he has other friends to compare, but Eddy doesn’t care. Brett is shorter and louder than Eddy, and his shirts always look way better than Eddy’s, but he doesn’t seem to care; he always comes up with the wildest stuff to do and his jokes are really funny. He wears braces but smiles whenever he likes to and talks loud when they are together. He’s really quiet in the orchestra, though, perhaps because they’re both the youngest there, but when the new conductor comes the other day, Brett is the first to greet her. 

His handwriting is a complete and utter disaster; their first fight happens when Brett throws a crumbled paper covered in scribbles to the window in Eddy’s room and Eddy throws it away, not being able to read a single word. Brett was sulking for a whole week, then went back to his normal cheerful self and never talked about it after.  
Eddy knows almost nothing about Brett’s school, but he has a feeling it’s just like his own - full of people that don't talk to you unless they absolutely need to, and it brings them together - just like playing the violin, going to the same math classes and the same sense of humor does. 

He’s drawn to Brett in a manner that makes perfect sense for him and no sense for everyone else. Eddy can’t explain that force, akin to gravitation, that pulls him and leaves to hang around Brett, he’s just that - the person Eddy has the most fun with, the person with whom he can share almost everything. For everyone else, Eddy is: a good student, an avid young musician, a quiet boy from the math prep, a lanky nerd with a weird face.  
For Brett, he’s just Eddy. 

Brett tells him that he kissed already, and Eddy believes him almost immediately, like with everything else; Brett knows everything, crushes and dates and kisses. Out of them, Eddy thinks, Brett was the one who used the word “crush” first. Eddy finds it just a tiny bit scary in a sense he can’t really capture; _crush_ sounds like something that's supposed to hurt you. 

They’re outside after a math class, waiting for Brett’s dad, and the spring evening is setting in; Brett’s dad is going to pick him up, and Eddy is going to walk to the bus stop alone, this is his least favorite part of Friday evenings. He listens to Brett blabbering about tongues and sticky lip gloss - _tastes like nothing, color like the one your sister wears_ \- and the feeling he can’t exactly name hollows him out slowly. 

“Is she from the math class?” he asks, though he isn’t sure if he wants to know; Brett turns red in an instant and stops talking. “It’s a girl, she’s from my school, you don’t know her,” he says at last, and the next few minutes they spend in uncomfortable silence. Then Brett starts talking about his new violin teacher, and Eddy joins the conversation, relieved; something is clawing at him, still, wanting to go out; he shoves it further, deeper. 

The air gets colder, and they sit closer together, touching shoulders; before Brett gets in his dad’s car, he hugs Eddy. It’s the first time he does this, the first time they hug, even - Eddy didn’t want to throw his limbs around Brett, no matter how much he, a younger brother who gets hugged the most, wanted to do it; and Brett just never entered his personal bubble except for occasional bumps here and there, handshakes and high fives.  
Brett sure as hell doesn’t smell like a stray cat, Eddy thinks, detached, his hands on Brett’s back. 

This evening, Eddy plays his etudes till it’s almost midnight, feeling strangely feverish; later, lying in bed, he cries a bit - it feels more like a generalized sadness and confusion than anything else.  
When his thoughts turn to be kissed - more out of habit and a need to comfort himself - he closes his eyes, and this time, there’s a face, blurred but familiar, and Eddy bites his lip and opens his eyes wide and slaps himself on the face.  
He manages to fall asleep only in a couple of hours; his face is burning.

Yang's family household is giant, overly decorated, unfriendly at first; Eddy feels someone looking at him as soon as he steps inside. While Brett’s mom is scurrying around them, Brett waves his hand dismissively at Eddy. “That’s my brother. Don’t sweat it, he’s staring at everyone.”  
“It’s okay,” Eddy says and his voice sounds way too loud in a hall; he looks around cautiously and continues, more quietly:  
“You started talking to me in math class because I was staring at you.”

“Yo, that was annoying as heck,” Brett laughs and earns a reprimanding look from his mother, then she looks at Eddy, her face is colored in sweet and something else Eddy doesn’t really understand.  
“My sister wouldn’t care to stare,” he says to fill in the silence. “She’s too cool.”  
“Then the next sleepover is at yours, dude, I wanna see her one day,” Brett chuckles. “You can all play together,” his mom interferes, and Eddy feels his cheeks getting hot. He isn’t sure he wants to invite Brett over after he has seen his house; but that comes later, and now isn’t really the right time to think about it. 

Brett smiles at him apologetically, as if saying “Mothers, am I right?”, and for a second his face is way too similar to that one Eddy thought about that night; and the shock on his face is too readable, perhaps, because Brett doesn’t waste any more time and drags him up the stairs, waving his mom goodbye. Eddy holds on to his violin case - mom made him take it - and lets Brett drag him along; after all, he always does.

Brett’s room is smaller than Eddy thought it would be; maybe, because it’s wall-to-wall with awards, posters, diplomas. Eddy spots his violin case by the wall immediately but doesn’t ask Brett to play together, although his hands are itching to be occupied with something and playing seems like the most natural thing; instead, he strokes the green pumpkin plushie on the bed. 

“My brother’s,” Brett says, grimly, following Eddy with his glance. “He always brings them here.” Then he sees Eddy glancing at his game shelf and his face lights up. “Aha! Wanna play something?”, his mouth curves and Eddy thinks about the girl he kissed, once again. Did she like it? Kisses are either glorified or described as horrific, and Brett went into details describing his first one, but Eddy realizes now, he didn’t say if any of them liked it.  
“Sure,” Eddy says instead. “What’s your favorite?”

They play games till night, and good thing it’s not competitive because Brett gets heated easily; he tells Eddy how he has to hold back when he plays with his brother, and countless other stories about him being insufferable. They take turns in controlling the main character, and Eddy studies Brett when it’s his turn to play; his pajama pants are way too long for him, and he constantly rolls them up, looking infuriated. He talks and talks and talks, more than ever before, and listening to him is strangely soothing. Their sleepover, strangely enough, turns out not to be about sleep at all; they find out they both love Mahler 5 to death, and Brett plays him a bit of _Adagietto_ , and Eddy promises some Brahms on the piano later in return.

“Can’t you just come here every day? No one barges in my room because you’re here,” Brett sighs, while they’re lying on his made bed, their shoulders touching; Eddy feels Brett’s warmth flowing through his body. The back of his palm is brushed in an ever-so-ghostly manner by the same warmth, and if only he moves his hand a bit - which he obviously isn’t going to do, Eddy thinks, and out of spite, feeling a strangely familiar fever, does it the same damn second. He expects a jolt through his arm, a spark, a sound. Nothing like this happens; he touches Brett’s hand, and it feels warm and smooth, and Brett doesn’t move it away. He says instead:

“Eddy?”  
“Mm?”  
“I was bulshitting you. I never kissed before.”

Eddy’s face is alive and burning hot again, the same place where he slapped himself across the cheek; Brett’s shifting and turning beside him. Eddy doesn't move, isn’t sure what Brett wants him to say and do; the entirety of him is a roaring, deafening feeling.  
His heart slams into his ribs once, twice, and only then Eddy deciphers it; he’s afraid. 

He slowly turns his head to Brett, and it’s the first time Eddy sees him without his glasses up close, and something about this sight makes him look attentively, trying to spot the difference. Brett looks defenseless and open, blinks slowly, looking back at him; but he doesn’t look afraid in the slightest, and it evens them down the feelings scale in a weird manner. 

“Lip gloss tastes like shit,” Brett says quietly, and Eddy, drunk on the sudden derealization, moves closer, till their noses almost touch; he gives himself both some space to back off, making it into a prolonged leap of faith. 

Brett’s lips are softer and warmer than everything Eddy touched with his lips before in a feeble attempt to feel what it’s like to be kissed; it makes his stomach hurt violently. He doesn’t register who opens the mouth first, just a metallic sound when Brett’s braces meet his teeth; he touches Brett’s tongue with his, and it feels neither good nor bad, just wet and washes him with a hot wave of awkwardness. Brett must have felt that too, because he squeezes his eyes shut like he’s in pain, and they go back to lips touching.

Turns out, kisses are good and not that big of a deal at the same time, apparently. Turns out, it’s, in fact, deciding how big of a deal Brett Yang is. Eddy’s shoulder hurts from tension because they haven’t moved for an inch, and his mouth tastes funny. When he closes his eyes, the face is gone, the image is gone, and no one’s there; the sight of Brett, pink with lips parted, greets him as soon as Eddy opens his eyes again.

Maybe, he knows the answer already.

**Author's Note:**

> i left two hints that brett lied about his first kiss and you can see it before he actually says it Hehe


End file.
